Doing // Hacer
“To be or not to be” that is indeed the question. But if we remember any of the previous essays, we may realize that the question is not so black and white and that there is in fact a third option hidden underneath all the logic: to not be. You might say “There’s no difference between ‘not to be’ and ‘to not be’!” Perhaps not, but if we just imagine that there is, let’s see what difference it makes.
Being, not being, and non-being. Those are three categories that most people might recognize as only two, especially because we like to think that you either are something or you are not. Perhaps this is ‘absolutely’ the case in natural/material sciences such as physics and chemistry, although the wave-particle duality of quantum entities does raise some questions. If you’re unfamiliar with it, basically the gist of the issue is that sometimes, at the quantum level, there is a duality where an object behaves sometimes as a wave and other times as a particle, and therefore it is technically both and neither. Regardless of what the truth is in natural/physical sciences, the issue becomes more interesting when it comes to social sciences (e.g. psychology, sociology) or formal sciences (math & logic). Before even dreaming about tackling the formal sciences, let’s begin with the more constructive social sciences.
As explained in previous essays (particularly Essay 2 “Without Being”), humans sometimes seem to hold a third alternative when it comes to being and not being. If I am not a good person, does that make me a bad one? Again, some people’s intuitions will insist that this is absolutely the case, but a bit of questioning will reveal an underlying self-centeredness whereby “good” is relative and perhaps even opportunistic. Does a good person always donate? When do they stop and whose welfare/security do they prioritize? Would a good person ever choose an abortion? If it is not evident that everything is “sometimes good, sometimes bad” then I’ll be happy to lead you through the thought-process in order to get there. (Note: perhaps the single most abhorrent case that is never ‘good’ or even excusable is rape, and the reason for this will be explained eventually). Nevertheless, we humans are good at creating third alternatives in order to avoid a conflict between two opposites and this is what makes being and not being a more complicated issue than black and white.
Essay #1 on Being argued that “in order to be, there can be action and inaction” and that’s precisely what brings us to the root of the issue: doing. Being a good person entails doing “good” things (whatever those may be), but logic creates a dilemma since good and bad are opposites in the same way that doing and not doing are opposites. Does a good person always do good? Can a bad person do good and still be bad? These seem too simple to take them seriously, but how much and for how long does someone have to do something in order to be it? How can we claim that someone is good even if they don’t seek the opportunities to do good? Is someone bad if their attempts to do good resulted in bad consequences or if their evil intentions lead to good consequences? What is the relationship between what someone does and what someone is? This leads precisely into the issue of becoming.
